Alinor (61 page)

"That was why we fell upon you, my lord," Geoffrey explained eagerly. "When we saw we could not fight them, Owain and I pretended fear. We clung together, making no attempt to escape or wrest the pikes from them. We thought, sooner or later, they would become incautious. When the door opened, and we saw two unarmed men―"

"Well thought and well done," Ian approved. "It was the only chance you had. Now hurry to make ready. This is like to be an ugly battle. Oh, be sure to look upon the walls for those who―"

"They are not here," Sir Peter interrupted. His tone was indifferent with hopelessness. "It was my own squires—grown men now but with nowhere to go but my service—and my wife's brother. I sent them out before I released you, my lord. I would not have them die also for my fault."

Ian said no more, but his eyes signaled Owain to look anyway. Although he believed Sir Peter, he would not dismiss the chance that this was all arranged so that he would "die in battle." He turned back to Sir Peter.

"What said this message from Gwenwynwyn?"

A faint color rose into Sir Peter's gray face, a small signal of the shame and wrath he would have felt if all emotion had not been deadened by despair. "It offered me three choices. The first was to kill you and send out your squires as prisoners into his hands. If I did this, I would not have to open my keep to him. He would take me as vassal, he promised, and protect me both from Llewelyn's wrath and the king's. If I did not like the idea that your squires would cry aloud of my treachery, I could have a second choice. I could kill you all three. If I made this choice, however, I must yield the keep to him, since for our own safety it must seem as if you died in battle."

"He did not explain how such seeming would be supported? And the third choice?"

"War—" Sir Peter's eyes, which had been steadfastly fixed upon his own lax hands or upon the floor, at last lifted to Ian's. "You never intended to drive me out, did you?"

"Of course not, you fool! What sort of idiot do you think I am to be the instrument of beginning a war in which Llewelyn had a right to summon me, which might rage for years, bringing in the king—who also has a right to summon me! To which would I go?"

Sir Peter shrugged. "Lord Gwenwynwyn has played me like a poor fish." He sighed, and his eyes dropped to the floor again. "My tale is done, and I am done also."

Clumsily, like a man whose muscles protest against what his mind forces upon them, Sir Peter knelt. Ian looked down at him. A single blow of the sword he carried bare in his hand would solve the problem of a disloyal castellan. But was the man disloyal? Stupid, yes, but death seemed an excessive punishment for stupidity, especially in this case. Lord Gwenwynwyn was by no means stupid; he was a very clever and devious man. He had known exactly how to play this poor fish.

Besides, Ian thought, how could he explain their leader's death to the men-at-arms who would, within hours probably, need to fight a much stronger force. They believed he had been sick. Their faith would be sorely shaken if Sir Peter suddenly disappeared, as well as his squires and brother-in-law. Had the man planned this? Was Sir Peter a clever archvillain rather than a poor fish? Ian looked down at him. He could not believe it. There was nothing, nothing even to hint at such brilliant deviousness. The chances Sir Peter had taken, was taking at this moment, were far too great. After all, had Ian been stupid, he would have killed him out of hand.

"I beg you, my lord, strike," Sir Peter pleaded, shaking with dry sobs. "I have done you a great wrong, but is my life not payment enough? Do not torture me."

"Oh, stand up, you ass," Ian exclaimed irritably, "and stop making me out as much of a fool as you. Do you think I would kill you now, just before a battle? Every sword will be needed if we are to beat off this foe."

"What?"

"Get up, I say, and arm yourself," Ian repeated. "We are all like to die because of your stupidity, but I am not going to sell my life cheaper by even one fighter. You got us into this coil. Now do what you can to get us out of it."

"My lord, my lord," Sir Peter cried, seizing Ian's hand and kissing it fervently. "You will not regret your mercy, I promise you. I―"

"Do not praise my mercy too highly," Ian said with a wry twist to his mouth. "Nor do not think you will come out of this scot-free. I do but postpone your fate. Lady Alinor will have the judgment—if we come alive out of this."

Sir Peter's eyes widened. "She will have me torn to pieces with hot pincers. If I could have shown her―"

"I will not let her do that," Ian said drily. Then he began to laugh. "So much I will promise you, if we hold the keep."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Once upon the walls, there was no reason to laugh. It was apparent that Lord Gwenwynwyn intended assault as soon as he could get his ladders fixed and his ram ready. He was making no effort to hide his preparations, nor even the size of his forces. Ian looked over the number of men laboring on scaling ladders and frowned. The force was not very large, but it was large enough to take the keep unless it was defended with very great determination. Worse, within the keep they were very few. Determination might withstand one assault, possibly two. After that they would be taken, because there would be no replacements for men wounded or killed.

As soon as Ian emerged from the keep, Geoffrey and Owain came across to him. Unless the men who kept them prisoner were deliberately being hidden, they reported, Sir Peter had told the truth. Those three were not on the walls. With his squires behind him, Ian went up through the tower near the gate and paced the walls, inspecting the preparations for defense and speaking a few words to each man. Owain had not been misled by the servants. The men-at-arms had believed he was sick. All asked anxiously after his health, and Ian reassured them. His appearance supported his statements. If his face was a little drawn and hollow-eyed, it was easy to see that he carried his weight of mail lightly and walked with a spring to his step. To each man his message was the same: Fight to live; yield and die. Gwenwynwyn would permit no tale of what happened in the keep to be carried abroad. Thus, each man, innocent as he might be, must die because Ian, his squires, and Sir Peter were all condemned to death.

The keep at Clyro sat on the crest of the hill. It had no moat, although there was a declivity at the base of the walls where the ancient ditch of a ditch-and-dike fortress had once been. No moat meant no drawbridge or portcullis. The walls were closed with great gates, foot-thick planks bound together with iron crossbars and sealed by triple tree-trunks that lay in great iron hoops. Opposite these gates, at the foot of the last rise, Ian watched the battering ram being readied. On either side of the gate, archers stood ready on the walls, but they would be of little use. Ian could see the framework that would support a shield of toughened hide that would protect the men working the ram. The archers might pick off a man or two who showed themselves incautiously, but on the whole they would be ineffective. The catapults could not be trained so close against the walls.

"Geoffrey, I want two winches and wheels, with a framework that will reach—oh, ten feet, beyond the walls. One this side of the gate, one that. We need also wood for fires and ten barrels of pitch—if the keep holds so much—five this side, five that. Set the fires at once. When there is a good bed of coals, the pitch is to be warmed over it until it begins to ooze. Have a care— tell the men to have a great care. The barrels must be turned, and they must not grow too hot or they will burst. Pitch is not lightly removed. Remember my back."

That would do for the ram and the men who worked it. Ian moved on. There were already fires burning on the wall, heating cauldrons of oil to be poured down on the attackers. Ian climbed up and craned over the battlement. Because of the declivity, the ladders could not be set close against the wall. That would make the climbers a little more open to arrow-shots, but not much. It was difficult to aim at any acute angle through an arrow slit. More important, it would save them from being inundated by the hot oil, which would run down the walls.

"Owain, lay your arm across the arrow slits and see the narrowest. Then run down and see if you can find some troughs—you know, the kind they use for pouring grain—that will fit in the slits. The longer the better, and not too tight a fit, so the trough may be swung from side to side. If there are none, let the serving men wrench out every pipe and gutterspout they can find. Lay those some yards apart all around the walls—except not by the gates, they will have the pitch there—and bid the men-at-arms to thrust them through the slits when the attackers are halfway up the ladders—not sooner. Then the pipe or trough may be twisted so that it aims toward the climbers, and the hot oil must be poured through as quickly as possible."

Owain nodded and ran off, smiling grimly. That was a clever thought of his lord's. Owain remembered only two months ago how the oil had poured uselessly from the spouts made for it when they took the keep in Sussex. Then he had been surprised to see Lord Ian ride round and round the walls as close as he could get, daring death from arrowshafts, only to stare up at them. His lord had explained, of course. Lord Ian understood his duty to teach his squires all he knew of warcraft. Perhaps Lord Gwenwynwyn could be brave enough, clever enough, and thoughtful enough of his men to see where the oil spouts were and set the ladders well away from them, but it would not matter. With Lord Ian's arrangement, the oil would come to the ladder if the ladder would not come to the oil.

Owain gone, Ian looked around. Poles with hooks on the end lay ready to grasp the scaling ladders and push them outward. That might be possible, even when the ladder was weighted with men, because the angle would probably be more near the upright than he had set the ladders in Sussex. Even so— He beckoned a group of men-at-arms together and explained that there was another use to which the hook could be put. If it was impossible to topple the ladder backward, it could be pushed and pulled from side to side. With good luck some men would fall off, and all would be greatly impeded in their climb. With better luck, the ladder could be thrust off sideways, or one foot would break under the pressure and bring about the same result. When he was sure the men really understood what he had told them, he sent two off around the walls to explain the technique to other groups.

At the moment, it was all he could think of. He looked out once more at the preparations being made. They had still a little time before Gwenwynwyn's force would be ready to attack. From the spot he now stood on the walls, Ian looked down into Lady Peter's walled garden. It was smaller than the garden of Roselynde, but just as well kept. Ian, however, was not thinking of that nor of the pleasant hours he had spent in that garden with Alinor. "You," he said to the nearest man-at-arms, "go and find Sir Peter. Tell him to set the servingmen to tearing out the stones of the garden. Have them brought up to the walls, and the servingmen also. They are not trained in arms, but they will be put to the sword as much as we will. Let them fight as they can. They can cast down stones upon the attackers."

Lord Llewelyn did not wait at Llanrwst for his vassals. So well had Alinor worked upon his fears, that the men were summoned to meet him at a keep on the very borders of Powys. He did not, of course, write a summons to Ian's vassals. He had not that right. He would go with Alinor and lend his authority to her pleading. If the men refused to come, there was little that even Lord Llewelyn could do. It was not worth arguing about anyway. Ian's lands in Wales were not large. Perhaps 20 men might be had from each vassal. Because he did not wish to waste time, he rode with his own troop and Alinor's to Ian's keeps first.

To their surprise, they found there was no need to explain their case. In fact, they needed to ride very fast to overtake the first group, which had already left. When they caught up, they heard the story of the men-at-arms who had been put out in the night. Alinor and Llewelyn exchanged stunned glances. This was the maddest thing of all. It made no sense of any kind. It made no sense if Ian was to be pressured into ceding the keep into Sir Peter's hands; it made no sense if Ian was a hostage to entrap Alinor; it made no sense if Ian was dead. In the first two cases, the men should have been kept as prisoners; in the third case, the men should also be dead.

Alinor turned to her husband's clan brother. "Can this be some Welsh custom my man has picked up or misunderstood?"

"The Welsh may be different from Normans, Lady Alinor," Llewelyn replied drily, "but they are quite sane."

"Then, Lord Llewelyn, I begin to fear I have been the unwitting bait in a trap set for you. What else can this be but a means to draw you to Clyro Hill?"

There was a little silence, and then Llewelyn smiled. "If it is a trap, there can be only one man who set it. Do not trouble yourself, dear sister. I am willing, very willing, to spring this trap."

He sent men off to Ian's other strongholds with the information as to where they should meet his own forces, and he looked approvingly at the 47 men following Ian's vassal. The man must have stripped his keep of everyone except cripples and ancients. It was interesting that Ian was so well-beloved, and very helpful, too, in a case where, if this was a trap, every man would count. If every man counted, however, Alinor's vassals would have to come from Clifford as quickly as possible. How this was to be brought about suddenly became a greater problem.

It was reasonable that Alinor should be allowed to pass unmolested toward Gwynedd, if the purpose of the trap was to catch Lord Llewelyn. It was equally reasonable that she would not be allowed to make the return journey to bring reinforcements. The men discussed the matter that evening in camp with considerable anxiety. As soon as they passed the border of Powys, they would be fair game for an attack. They were a strong enough force not to fear that, but it made them uncomfortable to have a woman in their midst. Yet they could not leave her behind, since her men would not move from Clifford without her command. Alinor, seeing the discussion going in exactly the direction she desired, modestly held her peace.